Jarjar Ghar: Documentary on Mumbai s generational tenants underscores city s ethos, and its glaring housing crunch January 18, 2021 10:52:31 IST
In 2019, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority declared 14,207 south Mumbai buildings dilapidated. However, the residents – many of whom have been living in these decrepit houses for decades – refused to move to transit accommodations for MHADA to initiate redevelopment procedures. They seemed to have accepted that the fear of living in a run-down establishment is more palatable than the crippling anxiety of moving to temporary housing, never to return to their generational homes, like scores of tenants who continue to languish in transit camps after over 30 years of moving out.
The government s attempt to vacate dilapidated buildings has provided no promising rehabilitation procedures. (Representational)
Geetanjali Gurlhosur was working as a journalist in Mumbai in 2017, when she documented the lives of residents living in the dilapidated buildings across the city. The struggle and helplessness of the families living in these structures stayed with her. Three years later, the short work assignment became the subject of her five-minute documentary, ‘Jarjar Ghar’, which is one of 10-shortlisted films from across the country at the Nagari Film Competition.
The Nagari Film Competition is an annual contest designed to guide and develop films that focus on urban issues specific to Indian cities. The five-minute film has been commissioned by the Charles Correa Foundation.
A still from the movie “Day One”
GUWAHATI: Whenever someone speaks about lack of living spaces, the first cities that come to one’s mind are Mumbai and Delhi. A major reason for this is that these are the places that have been portrayed in most movies and as such, similar issues in other cities never get highlighted.
To showcase urban space issues that small cities like Guwahati face, a filmmaker and social scientist have come together to make a movie “Day One” to highlight urban housing problems and space inadequacies here.
The film has been made as part of the Nagari Film Competition, an annual contest designed to guide and develop movies that focus on urban issues that are specific to Indian cities. The six-and-a-half minute film has been commissioned by Charles Correa Foundation, which works on education and research in human settlements, Mukul Haloi, an Indian filmmaker based in Assam’s Nalbari, and Pooja Kalita, a PhD scholar of South Asian University’s d